Dawnseekers

Wandering Woods With Weird Wildlife

Once within The Greatwood, Haskell Ullvetten and Kalen Sand were easily able to continue following the trail of the clansmen, despite the increasing thickness and elemental foreboding of the woods. Sounds of shadowcats on the hunt trailed behind them, and glimpses of other predators trailing them at the edges of their vision to the right and left. Before they could either overtake their quarry or become prey of their own, however, they heard the sounds of conflict ahead of them.

Before they could draw up short, they stumbled upon a Dire Bear assaulting a crowd of the clansmen, and saw yet more of them seemingly attacked by the very foliage of the trees. They attempted to veer around the melee, only to find themselves suddenly stumbling upon a grove of massive weirwood trees wherein the surviving members of the mountain clan force were held prisoner by a band of Children of the Forest.

Haskell addresses the Children in the Old Tongue, with respect and reverence, having stumbled upon one of the greatest mysteries of the old world which are the main focus of his academic pursuits. He tells them that they did not mean to encroach upon their home, but that the clansmen murdered their kinsmen and stole a family heirloom and they wanted only to recover it. One of them steps forward and identifies himself as Taproot, and tells them that he has indeed recovered Dawn from the clansmen and that he will agree to return it to Kalen if he will first do something for them.

Taproot is a greenseer, and tells the adventurers that he has seen a clutch of dormant dragon eggs lying beneath the foundations of the Wall, far to the north near the Land of Always Winter. He says that they have been there since the Longest Night and will be likely to quicken and hatch in the upcoming summer. Not only would hatchling dragons amongst the Night’s Watch be…problematic, but also there is a Valyrian dragonlord named Maegor Rahlaryswho even now follows an old war story of his grandsire and searches for the eggs himself. Taproot requests that the adventurers recover the eggs and return them to him, and that they take another human with them.

Roznas na Aqqun is a Ghiscari wanderer who has crossed the narrow sea in search of answers to his green dreams or a way to halt them. He found sanctuary in the grove of the Greatwood’s Children, but Taproot has seen that his path forward lies with Kalen and Haskell. Taproot tells the travelers that he can help them travel the majority of the vast distance very quickly, and they agree to his terms. They insist on seeing Dawn before leaving, however, just so that they can be certain the Children actually have it, and then Taproot creates some sort of portal through a massive weirwood that takes them from a grove in the Greatwood to a grove in The Wolfswood in a matter of moments.

Finding themselves immediately in the North, the travelers find themselves confronted with the brutal cold, but also are given aid of the Wolfswood children under the supervision of Sentinel. They are given directions and their horses are spoken to by a Child on an enormous stag, and the animals proceed to bear them tirelessly to the edge of the wood nearest the main shipping route to the Wall.

After a short amount of travel, they arrive at the Nightfort, and begin asking around under the guise of inspecting the work being done in preparation for sending supplies from Dorne, while in the meantime hoping to find a way to inspect an area beneath the Wall to search for the eggs they seek. The adventurers meet Tytos Casterley, First Steward, and Brandon Stark, First Builder, and are given temporary lodgings while they go about their business. They are informed that Eddard Stout, the First Ranger, and Olin Tyrell, the Lord Commander, are both at other castles along the Wall currently, so they focus their attention on Bran the Builder, as he is known. While Kalen pursues a conversation with him, Haskell requests access to the Nightfort’s library to see if he can find any lore that would help their mission.

Brandon Stark proves to be a massive blustering man and a prodigious drinker, but a fairly straightforward man nonetheless. He gets the bulk of their story out of them and tells them that he can, indeed, have them escorted beneath the wall to search for that which they seek, and then they part ways for the evening.

Don't Delay Departing Dorne

Kalen Sand, Braavosi, and Haskell Ullvetten continued on into the southern fringes of the Reach, and at the mouth of the Prince’s Pass can clearly see where a vast number of riders on horseback have passed recently. Anxious to make up some lost ground on what they assume to be their quarry, they ride hard to follow the tracks east-northeast, skirting the northern edge of the Dornish Marches. A day’s ride in, they still see plenty of clear sign of the passage of mountain clansmen from the Vale, with the occasional discarded item bearing marks that identify the clans as Milk Snakes and Moon Brothers. Haskell can confirm that these clans do not generally work together for any reason, and neither is known to raid outside the Vale at all in his experience.

Late in the second day of their travels in the Reach, the group can see a contingent of hoofprints moving apart from the main group to the north. Haskell and Kalen follow this smaller trail, whilst Braavosi continues to trail the larger group. In short order, Kalen and Haskell find themselves in a small nameless village that appears to be devoid of life. They search the village to find virtually all supplies and provisions have been stripped from the houses and the bodies of what they assume to be the entire village population piled up in the millhouse. Kalen burns the mill with the corpses inside, dedicating the nightfire to R’hllor. The pair of adventurers makes camp for the night within one of the small homes in the village. During the middle of the night, they are set upon by three clansmen, who the overcome and question. The survivor can confirm that they were the ones who ambushed the Dornish strike force and that Attagga of the Milk Snakes commands, with Hurras of the Moon Brothers as his second. Kalen executes the last clansmen and consigns their bodies to the flame along with the villagers.

Early the following morning, Kalen and Haskell set out to rejoin the greater trail, and travel hard until they see a massive sign of humanity ahead of them, at which point they take to the foothills of the Dornish Marches in the hopes of getting a better vantage from high ground without approaching too closely. They can see that the clansmen’s trail has narrowed considerably, skirting the edge of the foothills as they travel further east and north, and they can see why. An army numbering in the thousands is encamped between the Blue Byrn river and the Greatwood, and it is flying the seven-pointed star of the Faith of the Seven, marking them as Andal invaders. The clansmen have clearly sought to avoid them by directing their path into the Greatwood, and Kalen and Haskell, not seeing nor as far as they can tell being seen by Braavosi, follow the trail into the forest primeval.

Saddling Sand Steeds

The heir to House Dayne, acting as squire to the Sword of the Morning in the Red Mountains, has been killed along with an entire strike force of 300 men in an ambush that speaks of treachery. Kalen Sand is suspected of betraying the force in order to win back his position as heir to the house. Mors Martell, Prince of Dorne and liege lord to House Dayne, has decided to task Kalen with a mission to test his loyalty and his ability. The sword Dawn was lost in the ambush and not returned to Starfall as it always has been in the history of the House. Kalen Sand has been instructed to leave home on a mission to retrieve it, and not to return to Dorne without it.

When the Prince of Dorne sent a raven to the Citadel requesting a scholar who was an expert on the mountain clans of the Vale, Haskell Ullvetten was dispatched. In addition, a mysterious Braavosi was appointed a member of the small party to accompany Kalen, with little explanation save that he possessed skills that would be useful. The group made a fairly uneventful trip from Starfall to the Prince’s Pass, and thence North up the pass, keeping a wary eye open for bandits. They camped in the crags overlooking the pass on the first night, and made the watchfort of Kingsgrave the following day.

The Braavosi followed the Prince’s Pass further north, past Kingsgrave, in order to watch for a possible messenger to be dispatched in secret, if a spy or traitor remained at the fort and attempted to send word to the ambush force of pursuit. Kalen and Haskell spent an uneventful night at Kingsgrave, and in the morning Marq Fowler provided them with access to the clan symbols recovered from the ambush site. Haskell was able to verify that they appeared to be authentic mountain clan sigils. Following that brief visit to the study, they were given command of scouts and a small force of guards to investigate the site of the ambush.

The site investigation revealed little new, serving primarily to confirm what they had already determined. They were able to see the path that the clansmen had used to fall upon the Martell and Dayne forces and to see the layout of the battle site. With little else to learn, the three companions moved on northward up the Prince’s Pass and their escort returned to Kingsgrave. That evening, the small party found an ideal site at which to make camp for the evening, but during the watch they heard the sound of people among the hills and ambushed them. Kalen tried to get them to surrender, but a fight occurred in which only one of the men survived. They brought him back to their cavern hideout and questioned him , but after they realized he was a common brigand they decided that they would free him in the morning before they broke camp.